Winning Baccarat Strategies and Systems

Best Baccarat Betting Strategy Bets

Is there money to be made using baccarat strategies to play the card game online? If so, what are they? These are all valid gambling questions if you want to get more bounce for your buck playing online baccarat. While it is important to stress that there is no such thing as a silver bullet in baccarat, no guaranteed way to land a win; there are tips, tricks, systems, and strategies that help you improve your game, and perhaps, take a tiny slice out of the house edge. 

It is these tips, strategies and betting systems that are the focus of this guide. We will explore the most used techniques, explore the differences between strategy and baccarat systems, and provide you with top tips along the way. If you want to hone your baccarat skills and become a better card player, read on to find out more. 

Baccarat Strategies vs Baccarat Systems 

• Baccarat Strategy: This involves using a pattern of play, rules, if you will, which help you decide which hand to bet on, when to take a third card, and so on. 
• Baccarat Systems: These involve wagering in specific ways to maintain your finances, with the hope that when you do eventually win, that win will cover your losses. 

Neither baccarat systems nor strategies can guarantee a win, but both (when used correctly) may be able to put you on the road to success.  

Baccarat Strategies

They can make it “easier” to win but cannot guarantee a win every time the cards are dealt. In this case, we would say that baccarat strategies “work” towards making things easier to land wins, but they “do not work” if you are hoping for a cheat sheet or a guide to instant success. 

Understand the Odds 

Now that we have taken a brief look at the difference between baccarat systems and strategies, we should turn our attention to the basics. While not essentially a system or strategy as such, learning the odds is one of the best ways to ensure that you are not caught out when betting on baccarat. You must understand the odds of success before you play. The basic rules you need to learn are these: 

• There is a 1.06% house edge on the banker’s hand winning, so an RTP rate of 98.94%. This is more favourable than the player’s hand. Therefore, a 5% commission is usually applied to anything you win when betting on the banker’s hand. In short, if you were to win, you will pocket winnings of 0.95:1 instead of 1:1. 
• The player’s hand stands a marginally less chance of success. Here, the RTP rate is 98.76%, with the house edge naturally set to 1.24%. In some variants, this can rise into the low 1.30s. Because this hand has a lower chance of success, there is no commission on wins, and you will net at 1:1 payout. 
• The tied hand is the worst of the three possible bets. It has a low RTP of 85.64% and thus a house edge of 14.36%. This can drop to around the 9% mark in some games, but this is still very unfavourable. Because it is the least fancied bet amongst players, you can win at 8:1 for tied hands. 
• Baccarat games such as No Commission or Super 6 will do away with the 5% commission in the banker’s hands. This might sound as though they are hugely appealing. However, the software providers have compensated for the loss of commission in other areas. Banker hands will win with a six-point hand and only pay out a rate of 0.50:1, without a Super 6 side-bet being made. This is the price you will have to pay for pocketing prizes of 1:1 on all other winning banker’s hands. 

It is vitally important that you understand the odds of banker, player, tied and Super 6 hands before you begin betting on baccarat. Only after you have noted that can you start to look at systems and strategies. Tips also form a part of a good baccarat strategy, and assuming you have made sense of the odds explained above; you can move onto the next part, where we will discuss the do’s and don’ts of baccarat strategy. 

Top Tips: Things You Should Do 

Learning tips is arguably easier for newbies than getting used to in-depth strategies. Using the following baccarat tips, you can effectively become a better player or at least avoid the pitfalls commonly associated with baccarat. Let us begin by looking at the top things you should do when betting on baccarat. They include: 

• Learn how to handle your balance. Before you play, you should set win and loss limits. Once you have reached those, withdraw from the game. Whatever you do, avoid going all-in on baccarat hands. 
• Newbies should always begin simply. The best way to do this is to bet on the banker’s hand. However, you do not have to avoid the player’s hand entirely.
• Another strategy is to stick with either the banker’s or player’s hand until you lose. Then swap them around. 
• Be prepared to learn how to bet rapidly. In RNG (random number generator) baccarat games, you can take all the time in the world to place your bet. However, live dealer games often have short betting windows, so you will need to be fast. This can be challenging if you are using cancellation or list-based betting systems. Learning how to wager rapidly is advised. 
• Take the time to learn the three-card rule in baccarat. If you are playing online baccarat (either with a live dealer or in RNG format), you will not need to do this, as the live dealer or computer program will handle any potential third cards automatically. This type of game play is actually called Punto Banco Baccarat. However, if you intend on being the banker at some point in games such as Baccarat Banque or Chemin de Fer, you will need to know when a third card is needed. Learning this rule is arguably the most challenging part of learning how to play baccarat. 

Top Tips: Things You Should Avoid 

There are also one or two things that you should avoid doing when playing baccarat. Again, these form the basis of any good strategy, so you should jot them down. Here is what you should never do when betting on baccarat. 

• Avoid tied bets. These have the worst house edge of any conventional baccarat bet, and while they pay good prizes, they are unlikely to occur. 
• Stay clear of baccarat side-bets. These usually have the worst odds of success of all, even worse than tied bets. Moreover, never use a side-bet when you are betting with a system, as this will screw everything up. 
• When using a betting system, do not alter the value of your bets unless that particular system calls for an increase or decrease in stakes. 
• If you are experimenting with baccarat variants for the first time, you should try to avoid playing Mini Baccarat. This is a low-limit game, but it is very fast-paced and will likely confuse you.  
• Do not assume that counting cards is going to help you. Baccarat does not really feature any specific cards that give you an advantage. Moreover, there is often a six to an eight-deck shoe that is continually shuffled, making this challenging at best. Finally, you cannot manipulate the player’s hand by hitting or standing as you can in blackjack or poker. There is little point in counting cards if you cannot directly influence the outcome by hitting, standing, folding, doubling down, as you can in other games. 

Betting on the Banker: Basic Baccarat Strategy 101 

One of the most optimal ways to bet on baccarat is using a basic baccarat strategy. Betting on the banker’s hand is the optimal strategy for new players because, as mentioned earlier, it has the lowest baccarat house edge of just 1.06%.  

Imagine that an online baccarat game uses eight decks, and you want to play one hundred hands. The following table will show you why the banker’s hand is more favourable:  

Hand to Bet On	Hand Wins	Hand Loses	Hand Ties
Banker’s Hand	45.87%	44.62%	9.51%
Player’s Hand	44.62%	45.87%	9.51%

If we were to remove the tied hands from the picture, the banker’s hand would win 50.68%, while the player’s hand wins 49.32% of the time. The banker’s hand is clearly advantageous, even if you lose 5% of your winnings via a commission. 

Baccarat Systems

The basic idea behind baccarat systems is that you will eventually recoup what you lose when you win, with a small profit on top by betting specific stakes. However, the golden rule here is that you need to have enough funds to sustain periods of heavy losses to get you to that win, where you are in a position to recoup your losses. If you go on a lengthy baccarat losing streak and run out of funds (which is possible with some betting systems), then you will never get the chance to recoup those losses.  

Baccarat Systems Explained 

As touched on, there are ample betting systems that you can use to wager on baccarat with, too. It is worth pointing out that none of these is overly unique to baccarat. They can all be used to wager on roulette, blackjack, and many other even-money casino table games, both in live dealer and RNG format. Each baccarat betting system has its own pros and pitfalls, and we will look at the most common ones in turn. Let us begin with the most popular of all, the Martingale System. 

The Martingale System 

The Martingale System works on the basis that you should down each losing stake until you win. The basic logic here is that eventually, you will pocket a win, and when you do, you should be able to retrieve all your losses via that win, plus a small profit. Of course, the major pitfall with this strategy is that if you go on a lengthy losing streak, doubling your stakes could potentially see you run out of funds long before you bag a win to recover your losses. The way it works is like this: 

• If you bet $1 on your first hand and lose, your second bet will be worth $2. If you go on to lose again, you would then bet $4. If you win on your third hand, then your bet drops back down to your original stake of $1. 

The Fibonacci System

The Fibonacci is a sequence-based betting system. While number sequences may seem tricky to learn, this system is relatively straightforward. Every number in the Fibonacci sequence is the sum of the two previous ones before it. You do not need to be a math wizard to make this work. Every time you lose a bet, you add your two previous stakes together to form the basis for your next bet. Once you land a win, you return to your first stake. Much like the Martingale, the logic behind this system is that eventually, you will win enough to cover your losses with a bit on the side. It suffers from the same flaws as the Martingale, too. Here is how it works: 

• A typical bet sequence may look like this: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55. If you lose your first bet, you place the same stake again. If you lose again, you add the $1 and $1 bets together to come up with a new $2 stake. If you lose again, this stake becomes a $3 bet ($2 and $1), and so on, until you win. Whenever you win, you revert to your original $1 bet. 

The Paroli System 

Some online gamblers may refer to this system as the Paroli System. However, we prefer to call it the Reverse Martingale, and we are not alone here. Many thousands of other players do, too. Why? Because the way that the Paroli System works is, for all intents and purposes, the same as the Martingale, albeit in reverse. 

The major flaw with the Martingale System is that if you go on losing streaks, you are likely to end up bankrupt. The Reverse Martingale, or Paroli, works in the opposite way to its more famous counterpart. Here, you will double your bet after a win and lower it to its default value following a loss. If you lose multiple times in succession, your stake remains at the same value. The benefit to this system is that you can pocket vast sums with several lucky wins in succession and are less likely to end up bankrupt if you go on a losing streak. For instance: 

• If you bet $1 on your first hand and win, your second bet will be worth $2. If you win again, the next bet will cost $4. If you were to lose on your next hand, you would drop back to $1. If you lost again, your bet would remain at $1. 

The Labouchere System 

This is another betting system that can be known by other names. For instance, Americans may call it American Progression. You could also call it a Split Martingale. Ultimately, the Labouchere system, named after the French roulette player, Henry Labouchere, is a cancellation system. This is a slightly trickier system to wrap your hand around, and you will need to be precise with your calculations. It is a negative progression system, meaning that you will increase your wager following a loss, much like the Martingale and Fibonacci systems we have looked at thus far. This involves betting on the first and last numbers in a sequence, with the ultimate objective being to recoup your losses with a big win. Again, its primary flaw is that you can run out of cash fast if you cannot sustain heavy losing streaks. As it is complicated, you will need to pay attention to how it works. Here is an example: 

• First, you need to create a numerical sequence. For the sake of simplicity, we will say 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. You start by wagering the sum of the first and last numbers in the sequence. In this case, 1+5, for a $6 bet. If you manage to pocket a win, you cross off the end numbers of the sequence. Your next bet would then be the sum of the new end numbers in the sequence, so, 2 and 4, or another $6 bet. However, if you lose, you must add new numbers to the rightmost end of the sequence. For instance, if you were to win your first bet and lose the second, your new sequence would be displayed as 2, 3, 4, 6. As before, your next bet would be the numbers at each end of the sequence. The objective is to naturally clear all the numbers in the sequence, which should leave you with a tidy profit. 

Note, if your mathematical skills are not the strongest, or you are easily distracted, it is easy to mess up the sequence here. If that happens, you are in trouble. 

The D’Alembert System 

The final baccarat system we will look at is the D’Alembert System. Again, it is named after a famous Frenchman for the Eighteen Century, Jean le Rond d’Alembert. His system is a positive progression one, whereby you aim to recoup your losses and cushion yourself from further steep losses. Here is how it works: 

• You must choose a “unit” to start off. Again, for simplicity, we will choose $1. If we lose a bet, we should increase your next bet by that “unit”. If we win, we drop our stake by one unit. For instance, if we bet $1 and win the first three games, we continue to bet $1 each time. If we were to lose the first three hands, our bets would be $1, $2, $3, and so on until we win. If we lost the first three hands, won the next two, and then lost, our stakes would consist of $1, $2, $3, $2, $1, $2. It takes some getting used to but practicing at home with paper and pen will help you master it. Moreover, you do not have to use $1 as your unit, but you must stick to whatever unit you choose. 

The D’Alembert is less risky than the Martingale in that you can sustain a heavy losing streak longer, and cushion those losses, while still attempting to recoup them. Moreover, by setting your unit to a lowly $1, it may take a long time before you win big sums, but you can expand your session because you are not doubling your bet each time you lose. 

Do Baccarat Strategies and Systems Work on All Variants? 

Of course, the odds of success change marginally when you play with three decks (such as in Baccarat Banque), six decks or eight decks, but the same can be said of any card game. Each variant may tinker with the rules, but baccarat strategies should hold out. When it comes to betting systems, they are designed not just to be compatible with any baccarat games but virtually any casino game (roulette, blackjack and poker included) where even-money or close to even money bets are offered. 

Should I Use Baccarat Systems and Strategies to Bet Online? 

Strategies	Systems
Understand the Odds	Martingale System
To Do – win & loss limits, simple bet with no all-in bets, stick with player or banker or change change after losses, speed, learn rules	Fibonacci System
Not To Do – tie & side bets, deviate from system, Mini Baccarat, count cards	Paroli System – Reverse Martingale
Bet on the Banker	Labouchere System – American Progression, Split Martingale
	D’Alembert System

We would strongly recommend using baccarat strategies and tips when betting on baccarat online. The use of betting systems is optional. If you are flush for cash (so that you can sustain heavy losing streaks), then they could work a treat for you. However, if you are operating on a budget, we advise you to stick to baccarat systems that do not involve doubling your bet following losses. Again, the most important thing to remember here is that strategies and systems cannot guarantee a baccarat win, but they can (at times) help you get closer and turn the tide in your favor. 

Baccarat is a very old game, but that does not mean there is isn’t anything new to the game. New baccarat strategies are always being developed and tested. Once example is the “second banker baccarat strategy”.

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